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The nurse gives Benjamin one more look and then nods at us both. “Come with me, Mom and Dad.”
I meet Piper’s eyes. The labels hang in the air like the universe taunting us. In a split second, we silently agree not to correct the woman. Whatever gets us both back into an exam room with him is fine.
We follow the nurse through the labyrinth-like halls, collecting more nurses as we go. Every single one lights up at the sight of Benjamin coming their way and then grows concerned once he’s close. It’s not exactly encouraging.
We’re taken into a room where he’s stripped down to a clean diaper and poked and prodded.
“He should be crying,” I snarl, the words hissing out between gritted teeth. “Why isn’t he crying?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” the nurse says.
Silently, Piper reaches over and takes my hand.
The anxiety in my chest doesn’t ease, but it doesn’t get worse, either. It feels like someone else is here to carry the load. My fears are just as big as they were, just as dense, but feeling the warmth of her hand in mine grounds me.
When the nurse tells me she needs to take Benjamin for some tests, Piper’s hold on me is the only thing that keeps me from demanding I go with them.
Then the space clears and we’re alone.
The white box of a room is sterile and lifeless. My eyes bounce from medical chart to medical chart, seeking anything to distract me for even a second.
“What I wouldn’t give for some terrible dentist’s office art,” I mutter.
Piper, who has been standing perfectly still since the nurse closed the door behind her, jumps up and begins pacing the two steps back and forth across the room. “Maybe we should have gone with him.”
“Are you a doctor?”
She ignores me. “Did they put a tag on him or anything?” she asks. “How do they know he’s ours—I mean, yours—how do they know where he belongs?”
“They put the wristband on him and scanned it into the system when we first got in the room.”
She drags a hand through her auburn hair, her eyes shifting at the pace of her thoughts. “Right. Okay. Good.”
I can feel the frantic energy like a forcefield around her. It’s impossible to imagine that just a minute ago she was the one being strong for me. Now, she looks like her nerves are almost fried.
“Piper,” I say softly.
“What if I hadn’t gone to check on him?” she whispers, still ignoring me. “He wasn’t even crying. I just peeked in to look at him because I—Because I wanted to see him. Because I—”
“You love him,” I finish for her.
She looks up at me. For the first time since I walked into the house and saw her on the floor with Benjamin in her lap, I feel like Piper is seeing me.
For the first time, she can see beyond the haze of fear and panic that has been surrounding her since the moment we met.
Tears fill her eyes and she nods. “I really do. He’s perfect.” Then she remembers why we’re here, and she starts to break down again. “He’s perfect, but something is happening, something is wrong with him, and it happened on my watch. I was watching him and I almost missed it and—”
“But you didn’t miss it. You noticed and you called me. Now, we’re here.”
“You’re supposed to be mad at me,” she says in a weepy voice. “It would be easier if you were mad at me.”
“There’s nothing to be mad about. You saved him.”
She shakes her head, refusing to accept my words. “Not yet. We don’t know what’s wrong. We don’t know anything yet.”
“I do,” I tell her.
She blinks up at me, her eyes as wide and pure as a child’s. “You do?”
